


Names

by There_lies_my_sanity



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Pining Victor Nikiforov, Pre-Relationship, Touch-Starved, Victor needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 14:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14854770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/There_lies_my_sanity/pseuds/There_lies_my_sanity
Summary: Victor didn’t remember when he’d decided the ache was named loneliness, only that in the beginning he’d thought it a need for creation, for action, for accomplishment. When blood on ice, crimson on white, hadn't sated it, when pain and tears and drowning in medals hadn’t made it disappear, he knew for sure he’d been wrong.





	Names

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up at one in in the morning feeling angsty. Here are the results of my sleep-deprivation-induced writing session. Poor, lonely Victor! If only there was someone who loves you! (hint, hint, nudge, nudge. Yuuri, please give this boy a hug.)

It’s late, and Victor doesn’t want to be alone.

He’s not sure he trusts himself right now. It’s dark, and the world is asleep, and Makkachin’s soft fur and half-snores and willingness to be cuddled just...aren’t enough. It’s not enough. There’s a pit right beneath his ribcage, deep inside where food and smiles can’t reach. It aches to be filled, but Victor doesn’t know what to fill it with.

That’s a lie. That’s a lie, and as soon as he thinks that thought he wants to cry.

Does he want to cry? To his surprise, he finds he does. It would be all too easy to let the tears flow out, to give in to the burning in his throat. It would be all to easy to ignore it, too, so that’s what he does. He pushes the idea of sobbing away and pretends it never existed in the first place and just like that, problem solved.

Except there’s still that pit in his stomach and he knows why. Well, he thinks he knows why. Sometimes he gets this same feeling out of nowhere when it’s been too long since he’s been on the ice. Sometimes the feeling creeps up on him even when he’s been practicing for hours, and the only way he can hope to quench it is to practice longer, harder, until his feet are bleeding and his mind is empty.

It never works. Never has, never will. But it’s worth a shot.

Victor calls the feeling _loneliness._ It occurs to him, sometimes, that he might be wrong. Certainly he’s felt it before in the presence of others, in the presence of fans, of friends, of family. That’s why he’d called it a yearning for the ice before, before he’d decided that taking to the ice just didn’t cut it anymore. 

The pit tells him Loneliness is its name, and he’d inclined to believe it, even if it hasn't been sated with company any more than it has been with skating. Then again, he’s never exactly given it what it wants. Not completely. 

At its most basic form, it requires physical contact. Body heat against body heat, warm skin and careful hands and knowing presence. It’s what drives Victor to reach out, to touch, to hold. But never in the way he wants to. He doesn't have anyone to hold the way he wants to.

When he thinks about it in the darkness of night with a depth only three AM thoughts can achieve, Victor thinks it might be more than just that. He hopes it’s not, because true caring and understanding and---dare he say it---love are much harder to come by than human contact, platonic or otherwise. And it’s been so long since Victor let himself have that, openly and completely, that he’s not sure he’d know what to do with it if he got it. Would just its presence be enough to soothe the ache? He doesn't know. He doesn't know if he wants to find out.

Either way, what he needs isn’t something he can have. Not tonight, not right now. Perhaps, perhaps, _perhaps someday,_ his thoughts whisper, _perhaps in time,_ and he shoves those thoughts to the very backmost corners of his mind because hope hurts more than despair ever could.

So tonight, like every night he can’t trust himself (and he can’t, not with the way his eyes sting and his breath comes short and the room feels cold but his skin feels like it’s burning, and sweat’s pouring off him in rivers and Makkachin’s eyes seem distant and he just--he _just--_ ) he stands up. He takes off his nightshirt and his boxers, stands naked in the light from the lamp in the corner. He looks down at himself, at his calloused feet and his wiry limbs and his toned muscles and his spindly fingers. Then he puts back on his shirt, slides on his boxers, a pair of pants, and he leaves. 

He feels like he’s floating. His feet are by no means soundless, but the sound he makes seems distant, like it’s not really there. He can’t imagine meeting someone right now, can’t imagine another living soul existing anywhere near enough to confront him, even in passing. This is a kind of loneliness he doesn't mind so much, as long as he doesn't think about it for long.

The kind of loneliness he does mind is the kind that’s making him remember a warm thigh pressed against his own, bodies so close that they’re touching, and in the memory Victor is wondering whether the contact means as much to the other person as it does to him, if the other person feels the burning where they touch, wonders for how long is this acceptable, should he move away, should he move closer, should he stay put. Victor thinks all of these things and more, then thinks that he must be crazy to think them. It’s just a brush of skin to skin, not even _bare_ skin, just. There. And it shouldn’t even register, not really, but Victor doesn't know where he is or what he’s doing because every piece of his mind is busy processing the contact.

In the memory, he wonders how long it’s been since someone touched him like this. Not professionally, not deliberately, but casually. Friendly. 

Now, in darkened halls, he wonders the same. He has an answer now, though, unlike back then. His answer is earlier today (or was it yesterday? Has the clock chimed midnight?) during lunch. Yuuri, sweet, beautiful, wondrous Yuuri, had leaned against him for a while as they shared a meal. Victor had been too busy thinking to properly absorb it. He regrets that now.

He can’t help but imagine what it would be like to do that more. To have that as a constant in his everyday life. If every day he could greet Yuuri with a hand to the shoulder, could press his side against Yuuri when they stood near each other, could wrap his arms around Yuuri when he knew Yuuri needed it. When Victor needed it. What would it be like if that wasn’t just normal, but expected?

Would that soothe the ache beneath his ribs? Would playing with Yuuri’s fingers, Yuuri’s hair, would that make things better? Pressing his nose to Yuuri’s neck. Tucking his chin over Yuuri’s shoulder. Wrapping his hand around Yuuri’s hip. Would that make this feeling go away?

Victor knew he wanted Yuuri. By now, that was expected. Of course he wanted Yuuri’s time, his attention, his lips. That was just a part of who Victor was, now, and it was hard to believe that wasn't how it had always been. But could Yuuri really be the answer to the question he’d been asking himself since...since...forever?

Victor didn’t remember when it had started, this awful ache. He knew, objectively, that it hasn't always been there. Then again, he could rarely remember the feeling with any clarity after it had passed, so who was to say it wasn't something he’d been feeling since birth? He hoped not. Victor hoped that this wasn’t something a younger, more innocent him had had to deal with.

VIctor didn’t remember when he’d decided it was named loneliness, either, only that in the beginning he’d thought it a need for creation, for action, for accomplishment. When blood on ice, crimson on white, hadn't sated it, when pain and tears and drowning in medals hadn’t sated it, he knew for sure he’d been wrong. But he didn’t know when he’d begun to suspect.

Victor didn’t remember when the ache had decided Yuuri would be the one to sooth it. Just that one day, when Yuuri had turned to him and smiled and linked their arms together for one reason or another (it didn’t matter, nothing much mattered anymore except Yuuri, Yuuri, _Yuuri_ ) Victor had realized that the ache was gone. It was gone, and it didn’t come back until Yuuri wasn't there to keep it at bay.

The antidote was temporary. Soon, the ache was back worse than ever, even when Victor was by Yuuri’s side. It had never been a constant thing, but Victor couldn’t remember it ever being so persistent. And he was left to wonder if perhaps its name wasn’t loneliness after all. Perhaps its name was longing.

But it was longing for something he couldn’t have. Victor had no right to Yuuri’s warmth, to Yuuri’s comfort and company. Victor was here to help Yuuri, not the other way around, no matter what that stupid ball of hope tried to say.

Victor had long ago learned to ignore hope. Hope brought no reward. Skill, practice, determination, practice, confidence, practice, _practice_ , that is what brought him gold medals. (But even gold medals weren’t enough to stop the ache. Victor wondered if he should alter his methods.)

But oh, did he hope. He hoped Yuuri would be his, someday. Yuuri would succeed, Yuuri would win, Yuuri would surprise and surpass and overcome, these were things he knew. But that Yuuri would one day consent to his affections? That he’d intertwined his fingers with Victor’s, perch on Victor’s lap, thrive in Victor’s arms, exist in Victor’s space? These things were left to hope.

There were skates tied tight to his feet like the heaviest of chains. There was ice beneath him and fluorescent lights above. There was cold hanging thick in the air, cold and loneliness and longing. And it had never worked before, but Victor was willing to try again. He was forced to try again. He had to try again. (He had to try _something._ )

He’d skate until he felt light again, until he found his wings or lost enough blood (sweat, tears, morals, dreams) to fly without them.


End file.
